Over 320 dead in Pakistan floods

Flash floods and landslides triggered by torrential monsoon rains have killed more than 320 people in Pakistan in three days and affected at least 300,000, officials said on Friday. Hundreds of homes and thousands of hectares of cultivated land were destroyed in the northwest and Pakistani Kashmir, with the main highway to China reportedly cut off and communities left isolated. 

A boy hangs on to the front of a cargo truck while passing through a flooded road in Risalpur in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province Reuters

The current death toll of the floods in northwest Pakistan has dwarfed that of the recent Airblue plane crash in the hills overlooking Islamabad on Wednesday.

Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where impoverished families live in remote mountain villages, was the worst affected.

"We have so far gathered the figure of 325 deaths due to flash floods in the northwest and [Pakistan-controlled] Kashmir," said Anwer Kazmi, spokesman for Pakistan's largest charity the Edhi Foundation.

"We have not collected the complete figures from some districts and fear the number of casualties is much higher," he said.

The death toll was confirmed by senior provincial minister, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, who said around 300,000 people had been affected as gushing water swept away hundreds of houses.